Sparks D W, Ardell L A, Bourgeois M, Wiedmer B, Kuhl P K
J Acoust Soc Am. 1979 Mar;65(3):810-5. doi: 10.1121/1.382502.
Three normal-hearing young adults were tested in their reception of connected discourse materials under two receiving conditions; visual-reception alone (lipreading) and visual reception in conjunction with an electrotactile speech aid (MESA). Subjects were artificially deafened with earplugs and white noise; all stimuli were delivered live-voice using a special tracking procedure. Analysis of the data suggests that after an initial period of learning, combined visual and electrotactile receptive performance exceeds lipreading-alone performance. After extensive learning however, performance in lipreading alone or MESA plus lipreading is practically equivalent.
